Penny In The Air
by GlassParade
Summary: Rachel won't listen to Kurt's objections about her decision - maybe she'll listen to Blaine. Spoilers through 3x03, "Asian F".


**Penny In The Air**

**_Author's Note: _**_Spoilers. Spoilers spoilers spoilers through 3x03, "Asian F". I wrote it because...I don't know. It's just a reaction drabble to one of Rachel's decisions during the show with which I disagree. Glee is not mine. Rachel and Blaine are not mine - if they were, they'd be the bestiest of adorable besties. You might have seen this on my Tumblr (glass-parade), I'm trying to archive all my PG fic here. Which, oh yeah: rated PG._

"I know you know this song, Blaine." Rachel is frustrated, hands in fists on her hips while she stares at her leading man in consternation. "I'm not stereotyping you as a gay male, I literally know that you know it. I saw the add date in your iTunes, you've had it for years! How can you forget __any__of the words to 'One Hand, One Heart'?"

"Sorry, Rachel. I know. I'm just...my head's not all here today." Blaine wrings his own hands, eyes full of apologies and his mouth quirking in his little boyish half-smile that makes everyone want to forgive him anything. It works on Rachel about 85 percent of the time.

"Well, get it here!" Today is falling within the 15 percent failure rate. "Opening night is in three weeks, between this and trying to see Finn and doing my homework and sticking to my exercise routine,__plus __running for senior class president, we barely have time for our extra rehearsals! We have to make them count!"

Instead of picking up where she'd cut him off, though, Blaine moves to sit down on her bed, pushing himself back so that his feet clear the floor and he can let them kick aimlessly while he sorts out his thoughts. "Actually, Rachel, I need to talk to you. About one of the things you just mentioned."

"There's no time!" Stomping over, she reaches out for his hands to pull him up, but he shakes his head and gently bats her away. "Blaine!"

"Rachel."

That's when she knows he's serious, can see in his face that he's not going to even try to coax her into listening. He's not giving her a choice. The boy in front of her isn't Blaine Anderson, dapper leading man and boundless optimist, not anymore, no. Rachel is looking at Blaine Anderson, serious, sober Dalton boy and champion of those he loves, and she knows then that she's in trouble.

Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, Rachel lowers her eyes. "Blaine, I know what you're going to - "

"You know what I'm going to talk about. You don't know what I'm going to say."

She took a deep breath. "All right."

"Rach. This election...it's important to Kurt."

"It's important to me, too!" The words are out before she can stop them, but she covers her mouth after they escape anyway. Blaine gives her a sad smile and continues.

"I know. And I know Kurt told you why it was important to him, beyond just stacking extracurriculars onto his NYADA application." He looks at her, waits for her nod. "He's not going to explain that again, Rachel. You and I both know he's said his piece to you and now he's focusing on the race."

"I know." It's a whisper, one aimed at her black ballerina flats. She's clasped her hands behind her back so he won't see her knotting and unknotting her fingers with anxiety. Kurt hasn't spoken to her in almost two weeks. It's killing her, but she's so desperate to get out of Lima, she doesn't know what else to do. And she really has every intention of making him her Vice President. It should be a perfect plan for both of them.

Why can't he see that? And why does she still feel guilty?

"I want to put a face on Kurt's words for you, Rachel. I want you to really understand why it goes beyond a line on a piece of paper."

When Rachel looks back up, her eyes are captured in his earnest gaze. She can't look away when he starts speaking again. "Rach...if Finn were to bring you flowers at school - what would you do?"

"I'd kiss him," she responds immediately, because _of course_ she would, it would be the only appropriate reaction to such a sweet gesture.

"No matter who was around?" Blaine probes, and his eyes are watching her very carefully now, like he's waiting for her to get something.

__Penny in the air...__

"Right," she confirms. "No one cares. It's only kissing."

He's still looking straight at her, she can__feel __him willing her to understand. "Kurt brought me flowers at school when he heard I'd gotten the part of Tony."

"I know. You showed them to me." And then - oh.

Oh.

__...and the penny drops.__

"You can't kiss Kurt at school like I can kiss Finn." Rachel drops her gaze back to the floor, feeling her cheeks burn with guilt and the humiliation of not thinking of the obvious problem sooner.

"No." Blaine's answer is simple, direct. "I can't. Because people _do_ care when Kurt and I kiss. They care enough to want to hurt us because of it. Rachel, I got beaten up just for holding another guy's hand. Can you imagine how much worse kissing would be? And at __McKinley__? Face it, Kurt wasn't elected Prom Queen because he was suddenly super popular."

"But you can't change everything in just a year," she protests weakly, knowing she's only digging herself a deeper hole.

"But he could change __something__, Rachel. It would be a start. It would maybe give other kids the courage to come out, to unite together and say that __enough is enough__. Kurt and I don't necessarily want to be able to French kiss in the Astronomy room by the end of the school year," and his mischievous grin tells Rachel both that he's trying to jolly her into a better mood and also that he really __does__want to be able to do exactly that. "We just want to blaze the trail."

She bites her lip again. "Are you asking me to drop out of the race?"

"No." He shakes his head. "I'd never ask you to do that. All I wanted to do was put more of a human face on what Kurt told you. To underline his reasoning in a way you'd understand."

"I see."

"Rach." She looks up to see that he's shoved up off of the bed and is coming to give her a hug. "I mean it. Make the decision you want to make. Whatever it is. This was just something I had to say, okay?"

And the thing is, coming from anyone else it would feel like a guilt trip and she'd resent it, but it's __Blaine__, Blaine who never has an agenda and doesn't believe in emotional manipulation. She loves Kurt, but she knows her best friend isn't above a little emotional blackmail. It's why she was able to dismiss his angry speech with only a little guilt. Sure, he meant what he said, but she knew he was trying to use his words as weapons of coercion, at least a little.

She knows this because she's the same way.

But Blaine isn't like either of them. Under the layers of hipster puppy silliness is a logical mind and a warm heart. No pretense, no dishonesty. He really is just saying what he needs to say, and if Rachel just nodded and dropped it now, she knows he wouldn't pursue it further. He'd know he had made his point.

She tilts her head to the side as something occurs to her. "Kurt doesn't know you were going to talk to me about this, does he?"

"He doesn't, no." Blaine shrugs. "I planned to tell him later. Present it as a done deed. You know he'd just try to tell me not to do it and he'd say he doesn't need my help. Which is fair. He doesn't. If he doesn't win the election, he'll find another platform to fight on."

"Then why did you do it?" Not that she doesn't already know.

"Because I love him, and I believe in his dreams, and because you needed to understand his reasons better." He picks up the sheet music they'd tossed aside earlier. "So, anyway. From the top?"

As he launches in to the opening lines of their duet, she thinks about what it must be like to love in fear, never being able to be truly open with affection, how even the people who create the laws in the United States think that Kurt and Blaine are __wrong__, which is stupid because they love each other more than any other couple she can think of, including herself and Finn, and how is that __wrong__?

Rachel can see in that moment how much bigger all of this is than any of them, knows that Kurt saw the size of it long before she did, and she admires the courage that caused him not to buckle and cower in fear before the sheer __magnitude__of it, but to stand up and face it head on.

Even though she doesn't make an immediate decision, she's at least honest enough with herself to acknowledge the difference between an office sought for acclaim and an office sought for the ability to make even a small change.

It's food for thought.


End file.
